Through the Garden Gate--September 2023

September is a month of changes as schoolchildren go back after a long summer holiday. In our family the grandchildren are growing up and becoming more independent. The eldest grandchild started her second year at Leeds university, another began his first year at Lincoln. Then one is doing A levels this time and the youngest doing her GCSEs. There are changes going on in the garden too as Autumn has now arrived. It's a season that I love and I have been watching the changes to the garden daily. At the beginning of the month summer returned briefly with a really hot spell of weather, but since then there has been some very rainy, windy weather. Leaves are blowing about on the lawn keeping Holly the cat amused and giving her plenty to play with.

The Michaelmas daisies started flowering, giving a lovely splash of colour next to the Rudbekias and Gaura in the raised bed border. The sedums give interest throughout the year, but at this time when they are in flower I love the deep pink flat flower heads. 

Other flowers are still struggling on giving little spots of colour here and there, but now it's the turn of the foliage from shrubs and trees. The Rowan is starting to change colour, it's clusters of yellow berries seem to sparkle. Last year the crab apple tree produced masses of fruit but this year we have to search for the odd cluster. I don't know why that is.

 The raised bed border has become a bit overgrown in the last couple of years and I've kept meaning to sort it out, but not known quite what to do with it. The bed looks good in late spring, then gets overgrown and lacks colour later on in the summer. After much thought I worked  out that I need to dig some plants up to plant elsewhere in the garden and space others out more. Then next year I will get some new late summer flowering  perennials to plant. So on a fine day when I was feeling full of energy I climbed into it and dug up a Solidago (Golden Rod) plant which had got quite big for it's space and I had never really liked it there. I split it up and have found a couple of spaces in the front garden where I can replant it. The bed still looks a bit of a mess but at least I now have a plan of what to do with it. I also need some better weather so I can carry on with the work.

In the front garden, the Hydrangea flowers are  changing colour to shades of deep pink and almost purple on some of them. I am going to dry some of them as they are useful for winter flower arrangements.

At the beginning of September we had a few days away in Northumberland, visiting Holy Island, Bamburgh and Alnwick Gardens.  We've been to Northumberland before but never to the Alnwick Gardens so I was quite looking forward to seeing them. There are some spectacular water features, the main one greets you as you enter the garden, with water cascading down a massive structure of steps and plumes of water spurting up every half hour to give an amazing display. 

We had probably visited at the wrong time of year to see the ornamental garden at its best but it was still quite colourful in places. 

One garden area which we enjoyed, although quite a number of the plants had gone over, was the Poison Garden. Normally you can't enter this garden without a guide but we were allowed in and told not to touch or eat any plants. There were guides there who would tell you about the plants. It was interesting to identify quite a number of plants which we wouldn't have thought were dangerous, but were told how they could affect you if used in the wrong way. 

I'm hoping we will get to visit one or two more gardens before the end of the year, most likely RHS Harlow Carr as we love to see it in Autumn and also RHS Bridgewater.

I am linking this blog post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post